Storing beer in corny keg?

[DrDance]

Once again, asking those who are more knowledgeable…

How long can I store beer in a corny keg?
I have a few kegs, and if I was to fill them all with beer, would I need to keep them all connected to co2?
Or could I force carb them as I needed to?

Would they need to be kept refrigerated?
Or could I leave them at room temperature until I wanted to drink them?

I’m new to kegging and am not sure of the limitations of kegging yet.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[day_trippr]

• You don't have to carbonate until you want to, and definitely don't need to keep kegs on gas.
• Some styles "store" better than others (eg: imperial stout vs a light wheat beer).
• But, other factors aside, beer shelf life is inversely related to storage temperature.

Now, it's those "other factors" that will get you. Beer is usually best enjoyed "young". Storage tests the way the beer was produced, with oxygen exposure - especially that picked up post-fermentation - being a true beer murderer looking for a victim, but it also requires fairly strict levels of sanitation to avoid outright spoilage. And some styles will be particularly prone to exhibiting oxidation damage (new england ipas may be the sore thumb in the entire spectrum of beer styles in that regard) so mitigation and countermeasures will likely dictate practical shelf life.

Anyway, all of my beers get stored cold from birth. Based on the 10 gallon/2 keg batches I brew, I routinely will have a keg of my 1.107 imperial chocolate stout in storage for up to a year before it gets tapped - but that's my built-in outlier, it's an 11+% stout that more than half a pour will knock me RTF out, so consumption is throttled The much more typical scenario would be 3 to 4 months from kegging to tapping for the second keg of a batch, with the first usually going on line within 2 to 3 weeks of kegging (I do the "chart pressure" carbonation method that takes about that long)...

Cheers!

 

[micraftbeer]

I'm quite passionate about beer freshness. Ask all my friends I taught to look for and how to find the "born on" dates on beers...

Anyway, I did a story for a local Michigan beer magazine a few years ago and interviewed some Michigan breweries (link here). As @day_trippr points out, oxygen is what kills beer. And although there are levels of how LOW you can get oxygen in your beer, you cannot get ZERO oxygen in your beer. So it's a ticking time bomb. Experienced brewers know that certain beers require a certain amount of time after kegging for flavors to smoothen out. Each beer is different.

But since it's a chemical reaction with oxygen that kills your beer, higher temperature speeds that reaction, and thus kills your beer faster. For each 10 degrees C of temperature (or about every 18 degrees F), you speed that reaction by 2-3x (Arrhenius equation). So comparing a beer in keg in your keezer at say 35F to beer sitting in a room at 71F, you're aging it about 5x as fast sitting at room temperature.

Similar to @day_trippr experience, I find most of my beers have lost their luster as they get to be about 6 months old (I don't brew the high ABV beers that perhaps benefit from aging). And I keep all of my kegs cold as well. If I were to keep a keg at room temperature for a month, when I chilled it and put it on tap, it would be near the end of its useful life for my taste buds. And that's just a waste.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

You could prime the kegs with sugar and naturally carb them if they are to be sat for awhile.
I carb all my ales that way as I prefer that kind of carbonation, you don't have to be as anal about oxygen free racking(but do take care to minimize it) and for some reason naturally carbed/conditioned ale seems to take aging better.

Forget all the bull about using less sugar for kegs and treat it like a big bottle, transfer via a hose through the beer post and purge the headspace with co2 after filling and give it a few psi of pressure to seal up.

 

[SaintLupulin]

I brew mainly pale ale of about 1.050 OG with the kegs stored at about 55F and on low CO2 pressure and the beer is good for at least 6 months. I loses a little hoppiness over time.

 

[DrDance]

Thank you for your replies!
Basically, if I was to start making beer faster than I can consume it, it's ok in the keg for a couple months before I tap it as long as it is chilled (assuming oxygen free transfer, etc.)